Page 147 (1/2)

Meredith talked very little to Harkless of his cousin, beyond lightly

co, and telling him of

her friendly anxiety about his recovery; he said she had perfect

confidence from the first that he would recover Harkless had said a word

or two in his delirium and a word or two out of it, and these, with once a

sudden brow of suffering, and a difference Meredith felt in Helen's ether by the sickimpression, partly intuitive, that in spite of the short time

the two had known each other, so had happened between theuess which was not far fro was fairly plain--a sad lover is not so hard to

read--and Meredith was sorry, for they were the two people he liked best

on earth

The young ay presence daily to the hospital, where

Harkless now lay in a pleasant room of his own, and he tried to keep his

friend cheery, which was an easy matter on the surface, for the journalist

turned ever a mask of jokes upon him; but it was not hard for one who

liked hih to the melancholy underneath

After his one reference to Helen, John was entirely silent of her, and

Meredith came to feel that both would be eain be mentioned between them

He did not speak of his fah the connection was distant, the old man was, in a way, the